Alex de Minaur concedes the one-sided nature of his Australian Open quarter-final loss to Jannik Sinner says he may never be good enough to win a grand slam.
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But the Aussie says he hasn’t hit his ceiling and, with the right match-ups, can still peak higher than the last eight – asking, “why not me?”
The world No.8 was never in the match on Wednesday night, explaining the cold conditions made the task of beating defending champion Sinner even more difficult.
Sinner faced his greatest difficulty at this tournament in the fourth round, during a hot day match against Holger Rune, when he was also battling illness. In contrast the quarter-final was played at night on a Melbourne day that barely surpassed 20 degrees.
“It’s been too many times playing him and seeing the same thing. So I’m not even surprised anymore when I face him. Matches like these happen,” de Minaur said in his post-match press conference.
“I think he’s probably my worst matchup, and you can see it in the head-to-head (10-0 Sinner).
“In these types of conditions it’s even tougher to play against him. So you go out there, you compete. You try everything. You bring every sort of different look that you can. But in these types of conditions where it’s a little bit colder and you can’t really get the ball out of his strike zone, he can just unload and not miss. It’s tough.
“You know, I think if we’re playing middle of the day on a stupidly hot day, then that’s when you can see some errors come out, and that’s when you probably see Jannik not play at his best. But conditions like today, it’s tough to rattle him at all.”
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He added: “After playing some great tennis on home soil and gaining so much, you feel like you just have been slapped across the face, to be honest, to finish off like that.”
Making his debut in the Australian Open quarter-finals marked a fourth consecutive grand slam appearance in the last eight, an especially impressive feat when you consider de Minaur battled a hip injury in the second half of 2024.
With a more powerful serve, he has continued to grow his game, but challenging the world’s best remains a challenge especially with de Minaur less physically gifted than some of the top players.
But with players like Casper Ruud, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Matteo Berrettini and Nick Kyrgios having made slam finals in recent years, de Minaur isn’t ruling out a perfect run in the future.
Had De Minaur drawn better at this very tournament for example, he could’ve been in No.21 seed Ben Shelton’s place as a semi-finalist, while lower-ranked players like Karen Khachanov (seeded No.18 in 2023), Tommy Paul (unseeded in 2023) and Aslan Karatsev (a qualifier in 2021) have made the last four at Melbourne Park in recent years.
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“It’s pretty tough right now for me to sit here after this defeat and tell you that I believe I can go all the way (and win a slam),” de Minaur conceded.
“But saying that, I do think that there are opportunities out there.
“Tennis is so much about matchups, right? Yeah, I think right now my worst matchup on tour is probably Jannik. You know, there’s a head-to-head that doesn’t lie, right?
“If I’m in a different side of the draw, different little section, then who knows? I genuinely think I’m going to give myself opportunities, and I don’t think my peak is making quarterfinals in a slam.
“I see other players that have made it further, have made semis, have made finals, and I do believe that I can be amongst them, right? If they have been able to accomplish that, then why not me?”
De Minaur suggested he will reconsider his lead-up to future Australian Opens after getting just two matches under his belt at the United Cup.
Playing for Australia, he beat both world No.38 Tomas Martin Etcheverry and world No.127 Billy Harris in straight sets, but poor results from the rest of the team meant they did not advance out of the group stage.
De Minaur thus did not have any more competitive contests in preparation for the grand slam, though he said that was not a factor in the loss to Sinner.
“Ultimately I would have loved to play a couple more matches the first week of the year. The way it kind of fell about, it didn’t come,” he said.
“It is tough when you don’t get through the group stages. So it’s probably something I’m going to have to look back and think about and talk with the team.”
